Comcast CEO Brian Roberts has always been a big fan of Google, and has in the past talked about turning his company into the Google of TV. Speaking this morning at Sanford C. Bernstein’s Strategic Decisions conference, Roberts again raised the idea, but this time he put more shape into the concept.
When asked how Comcast might monetize the tremendous information assets the company has via its set-top box data gathering functions, Roberts pointed to Google and said “I have a real live role model that I would like to go after in an interactive advertising experience.”
Roberts said all the “pieces are in place” at Comcast to create contextual video advertising the way Google has done that for text-based advertising. “How can we take and match a message to the viewer using a computer-like device and an intelligent network?”
Roberts talked as if some kind of technology development is already underway to do precisely that. Moreover, whatever technology that could be developed, Comcast might share with other television providers.
“Doesn’t mean we have to keep it proprietary for Comcast. Why can’t we take it to a broadcaster and say you can have that kind of capability yourself?”
Everybody wins with that kind of targeted, intelligent advertising. “It ought to be in everybody’s interest, particular the consumer, because it means that the advertising is going to be more valuable and we won’t have to raise your rate,” Roberts said. “Look at the wealth that was created by just having text information delivered more efficiently.”
Comcast is getting into the groove of developing new technological doo-dads — the company announced yesterday a patent-pending platform called PowerBoost that enables customers to temporarily receive doubled download speeds when needed and at no charge.
PowerBoost will be promoted to customers as a way of communicating that “we’ve got even better, faster, cooler” services, Roberts said. The ever-increasing speeds of Comcast’s broadband service will also support another goal of the company — bring video over the Internet to customers.
“Video over the internet is going to power broadband and is going to power the differentiation for cable over DBS,” Roberts said. “We are aggressively trying to come up with ways to have video over the Internet.”
Still, despite Comcast’s own focus on using the broadband platform for video delivery, Roberts isn’t worried about Internet bypass of cable’s traditional video aggregation services. He thinks that most people don’t want the hassle and unreliable quality of Internet-delivered video. “I don’t think most people want a haphazard experience when they watch television,” he said.
Cynthia Brumfield at 11:57 AM|Comments(1)
Brian is still stuck in the television paradigm where entertainment and news is the only video that matters to people. He misses all the other uses of video that benefit society outside of entertainment and news -- video from my local school district, hospital, government, traffic cameras, my neighbor's neighborhood news channel, security cameras at the local business I own, etc. etc..
He is right that most people don't want the hassle and unreliable quality of Internet delivered video. The question is why cable delivers unreliable [Internet] quality video. And, why there is insufficent upstream bandwidth for everyone to become a video content supplier.
Posted by: Mike Bookey at June 2, 2006 4:05 PM
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